Formspring Shutting Down, Blames Lack of Resources

Formspring, the first ever ‘”ask me anything” platform which lets users ask questions anonymously, will be shutting down on March 31, 2013. The Founder and CEO Ade Olonoh announced the news yesterday afternoon.

Starting March 31st, users will no longer be able to use the site to ask and answer questions but they will be given more time to export their data until April 15, 2013. After the said date, the site and apps will go offline and they will bury your datas with it. So if it’s important to you, go export it now by following our simple tutorial below.

Formspring emerged as the leader in the Q&A platform ever since its launch in 2009. At first it was the sole big player in the field but its usage and popularity were seriously hurt when huge brands like Tumblr directly copied its key feature. The company initially had $14 million as capital to power up its marketing and development but that didn’t gave them the much needed push. Formspring also dipped their toes to be an “internet-based social network” last year but no matter how hard they try, they just can’t bring the good old days back. Facebook and Twitter are currently dominating, and there are no signs of any slow down.

Their biggest problem is the large chunk of competitors which replicated their system. One of the most popular Formspring like site is Ask.FM which lets users ask questions anonymously. Its popularity is quickly picking up and its only a matter of time before they get tagged as the new Formspring.

The last few months were filled with rumors that Formspring is cutting their internal staff to reduce their expenses. Today, it’s now official – and final. The official announcement was made through a blog post and you can read it here.